


All Our Paths

by onapage



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Asgard, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-09 04:47:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onapage/pseuds/onapage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Loki finds the path he thought he'd take closed to him, he is determined to forge his own.  No one is going to get in his way--not all of Asgard, and certainly not Thor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thor

**Author's Note:**

> Some terms used:  
> Glíma – where warriors learned wrestling techniques  
> hirð – a unit of warriors  
> lausa tök – a kind of self-defense wrestling that was very close to the way you wrestle when you could use every means possible to stay alive in a fight and at the same time tries to concur your opponent so that he was no longer a threat to you. It was the lausa tök style of Glíma that you used in any kind of fight-situation when your life was at stake.  
> lendir menn – the highest ranking members of a hirð, after the marshall and the standard-bearer, basically the Warriors 3 and Sif
> 
> Neither Thor nor Loki have ever questioned the prejudices they've grown up with regarding gender or the A/B/O system. Please don't let it throw you off! Both of them have a lot to learn.

Thor did not run, because princes about to reach their maturity did not chase down their little brothers like they were both still children. He did not run, but it was a very fast walk.  
  
"Loki!" Thor threw open the doors to his brother's chambers. Loki looked up from his desk, one eyebrow raised in wry surprise, still and neat in his dark robes. Thor breathed hard like a war horse, sweating under his leathers, already dusty from his warm up in the ring. "Brother, what madness has seized you now?"  
  
"Thor, you have barged into my rooms uninvited and conduct yourself like a madman. Surely, it would be more appropriate to ask the same of you."  
  
"My behavior is fully justified. Imagine my surprise upon being approached this morning by our instructors and informed that you refuse to return to the Glíma." The news was still impossible to comprehend. Both boys had been eager since their first blade to reach maturity and become war-leaders with their own hirð. No man would follow Loki into battle unless he trained with them every day and showed his physical prowess.  
  
"Well, since you already have the measure of the situation, I fail to see what you need of me."  
  
"Explain yourself!" Thor roared. "Why, brother?" _And why did you not tell me?_  
  
Loki stared at Thor for a long moment, eyes dark and uncertain. One long finger scratched down the edges of his book. Then, Loki stilled, a small smile curling across his face, wiping everything from his eyes but a shallow, cruel amusement.  
  
"Simply put, I no longer desire to spend my days rolling around in the dirt with those louts and simple braggarts. Not when my magic is finally reaching maturity, and I find myself capable of practicing the more advanced texts."  
  
"Sorcery!?" Thor wanted to wring his neck. "You will give up the company of your age-mates and comrades to play with the women and old men?"  
  
Loki snapped his book closed, a snarl forming on his lips.  
  
"Father never should have given you permission to study seiðr! It has clearly poisoned your mind!"  
  
"And who should give me _permission_ on how to live my life? You?" Loki rose from his seat. The sunlight through the window flared bright, and Thor flinched and squinted against the glare. "I am fully proficient at lausa tök, _as you well know._ With a few more years of sorcerous study, I will bet my wit against any blade." Loki stalked across the room to better sneer in Thor's face. "And if any man ever speaks the way you have today, I will have my revenge."  
  
"But you will have no lendir menn," Thor tried to appeal. To go through life without that small band of loyal fighters and friends at your back was unthinkable to Thor. "You'll be alone."  
  
"Oh?" Loki's smile was all teeth. "Even my own brother would not invite me to join his hirð? Be gone then. I have no more time for you."  
  
"You're an Odinson," Thor sputtered. The idea was preposterous. "We are equals."  
  
Loki's smile kept getting wider and worse. He laughed without amusement. "Dear brother, you have no idea how much that isn't true." He dismissed Thor with his back, returning to his desk.  
  
"Loki," Thor tried again, "what is wrong? Truly." Thor could not fight Loki's battles for him without damaging his brother's honor, but if his brother needed his aid, Thor's arms and shield would have his back.  
  
"Dismiss all thoughts of combat from your head, brother." Loki's smile lost its frost, becoming more fond and, strangely, rueful. "This is not something you can fight against."  
  
"You still will not tell me the truth?"  
  
Loki laughed again. "I have told you the truth, Thor. I am not to blame if you will not hear it."

The second morning bell rang out from the training field, calling the first round of sparring to a close. Thor would be in trouble soon if he did not return.  
  
"Is there nothing that can change your mind?"  
  
Thor wished in that moment that he was wiser like his father or cleverer like his brother or more insightful like his mother, because Loki's eyes were wide open and his mouth was a thinly-pressed, frank smile, and Thor had no idea what it all meant.  
  
"No."  
  
Thor could recognize when his brother had dug his heels in and would not be moved. When Loki made his mind up, it took a more skillful tongue than Thor's to convince him of his fault.  
  
"Then I will concede the argument--for now. Father and mother will surely take it up in my place, and hopefully they will possess some wisdom you will listen to."  
  
"Running to our parents so they'll take your side won't work this time. Father and mother already know and agree with my choices."  
  
Thor's jaw dropped. Their father approved of Loki's impossibly mad decision? Odin, who had been given the great and terrible kennings of Battle-Glad and Spear-Shaker, would allow his son to forsake the path of the warrior?  
  
"Then...then I suppose there is nothing for me to say."  
  
"There never was." Loki watched him like the great predator cats on Vanaheimr, tracking his every twitch and reflex with full absorption. "I believe it's time for you to leave. For your training."  
  
Thor scowled and marched across the room to slam his palm down on that damned book of magic. "I will not stand for you to shut me out. You are my brother whom I love dearly, so I will always be concerned with your welfare. I concede that you and farther are far more far-seeing than I, but I see like other men, and there is value in that too that I will not have you dismiss. If the path you have set yourself upon is baffling and strange to me, so it will be to the rest of Asgard."  
  
He fought the urge to sneeze. The air smelled strongly like pomegranates and cloves that tickled his nose, but he would not forfeit the the dignity of his words.  
  
Loki opened his mouth, and Thor cut him off. "If you are determined on this course, I know I cannot move you from it, so let us be done with this argument. I only hope you will be prepared for how the rest of the court reacts."  
  
Loki's smile slipped into a grimace. "No threats can disabuse me from my decision." Thor tried to protest Loki misconstruing his concern, but Loki waved a hand between them to cut him off. "Even ones only indirectly made. Brother, I assure you that I have carefully weighed all options before taking action. _This_ is what I want. Magic is so much more than I first thought. It has been tied so closely to the womanly sphere for so long that entire reaches of it have gone unexplored." He laughed shortly, lips quirking up. "Who knows, it might even be a blessing in disguise."  
  
"I do not see how that could be true," Thor grumbled. "I must return to the Glíma, or _I_ will be in trouble. I will leave you to your studies." Alone, in his room, while Thor returned to the comradeship of a score of warriors in training, whom he would fight besides on the battlefield and carouse with in the dining hall and stand by in hardship. Thor did not see how this could ever be a path to happiness.  
  
He could not help throwing a baleful glare at the thrice-cursed book before heading to the door. He paused on the threshold, turning. "And you will, of course, always have a place in my hirð if you wish it."  
  
Surpise stole across Loki's features before he could bridle it. "Thank you, brother."  
  
Thor nodded and marched out, pace as fast as he'd come. If Loki could not command his own hirð and no other would accept him, that meant that Thor needed to become a man in his father's eyes as soon as possible. He was still a good decade away from when he would traditionally be given the chance to swear his oaths, but he knew he could cut that time in half.

He was Thor Odinson.


	2. Thor

With a roar, Thor lifted Fandral bodily to unbalance him.  The two, grappling men toppled to the ground, Thor pinning his opponent successfully.  
  
“Peace,” Fandral gasped around the crushing pressure on his ribs.  “Peace, my friend.”  
  
“You should beg for mercy more fervently,” Sif criticized, perched with the rest of the Warriors Three on the sidelines to the practice ring.  “Considering your poor showing all day.”  
  
“Then I shall sweetly beg respite from your tongue, Lady Sif.”  Free of Thor’s hold, he rolled to his feet and executed a short, flourishing bow.  “For it is far more cutting than any injury I’ve earned today.”

“You have been distracted.”  Hogun looked as unimpressed as Sif.

“I do not know if that is a worse insult to Fandral or myself.”  Thor laughed, rising to feet.  “Considering the trouble he gave me.”  He tried to breath through his mouth, for it had been a hot day and all the men and women had sweated strongly.  Now that Thor and his age mates were older, the sweat was starting to be tainted by the stronger musks of their coming sexual maturity, and alpha and beta scents always mixed so unpleasantly.

Fandral may have been not fully committed to their battle, but the hours of grappling in the Glíma had left his right shoulder tender and hot.  Truthfully, Thor knew he should have stopped earlier.  He was a better warrior than to push through on through a potential injury when the only stakes were who would buying the first round of mead at the week’s end, but ever since that conversation in Loki’s chambers five years past, he had been gripped with a strange urgency.

“The insult was Fandral’s,” Tyr called as he walked by, finished with his own training for the day.  “For it’s been many seasons since a man could fairly contest the prince of Asgard without the full force of his strength.”

Or, perhaps not so strange.  The prince of Asgard.  As if there were only one and not two.

Thor had tried to talk to the Allfather about the sly innuendo which pervaded the practice grounds and found himself summarily dismissed.  Loki had been almost as elusive on the topic, but had at least condescended to private weapons training with his brother, even as he refused to work on close combat.

That was why Thor was still here, practicing as the others called an end to the day’s work and prepared for a night of feasting. Thor not only had to prove himself as a great warrior capable of leading a hirð of men older and more experienced than he, the elder prince of Asgard also had to learn how to teach those skills to his brother, who would not even consent to watch Thor’s practices, apparently consumed by the study of those illusory cantrips.

“Yes, quite.” Fandral grimaced at Tyr’s back.

Thor laughed and slapped his friend on the back.  “I am grateful for the extra practice.”  For despite his favoring of a blade, it was only Fandral who agreed to an extra wrestling bout after the end of day was called.  “But what calls your wits away from the field?”

Fandral sighed.  “The Lady Freya.”

Volstagg whistled.  “There is a woman highly deserving of attention indeed.  Though I would thank you not to repeat that to my wife.”

“And what quality,” Sif drew out the word, “of the Lady Freya has caught your consideration?”

“Tis better to ask what hasn’t.  Her every distinction is deserving of the most fulsome praise.  Yet, it is her scent that I cannot help dwelling on.  I fear she might be an alpha.”

“She let you scent her wrist?” Volstagg asked, plainly astonished.  “I had no idea she’d agreed to let you pay court.  You have been holding out on us!”

“No, no.”  Fandral scowled.  “I did not get so clear a sniff, but after spending all day wresting with Sif, who is—my dear, you must admit it’s clear—going to be an alpha, the developing scent markers seemed similar.”

“Why would this news make you so glum?” Thor wondered.

“That’s easy for you say.  Obviously the sons of Odin will be alphas.  The rest of us must at least wonder where our lot will fall.”

“Being a beta is hardly a hardship,” Volstagg remarked, dry.  “There is, in fact, far more women available for you to woo were that so.”

“Yes, but they will not include the fair Lady Freya.  My heart needs a few days to mourn.”

“Then mourn and be done,” Thor advised.  “For none can change their path in this, and as Vostagg has said, there are plenty who would be a better match.”

“Even if you do end up an alpha,” Sif agreed and dodged the slim dagger Fandral threw at her.  “Shall we remain here gossiping like crones while the roasts are picked clean and the barrels drunk dry?  Or will we get on with cleaning up?”

“Let us make all haste to the baths,” Volstagg agreed, and suited his words with action.  He scurried towards the columned entrance to the palace, managing to herd Hogun ahead of him while the others were left to follow.

An hour later, Thor entered the feasting halls, hair still damp, his skin hastily scrubbed clean of dirt and sweat and any lingering scent traces of those he’d grappled with earlier.  As expected, the rest of his family was already seated and presiding over the pre-meal activity.  Frigga sat directly to Odin’s left, the rest of Odin’s councillors lined up beyond her, while Loki sat two chairs down on their father’s right.

Thor took the empty seat between his father and brother, the firstborn prince tasked with guarding Odin’s blind side at all functions, while the Warriors Three and Sif arranged themselves on Loki’s right.  Those chairs traditionally would be reserved for Odin’s lendir menn, but after Thor had spent many, many nights shouting down to the lower tables to be heard by his friends, Loki had begged Odin on Thor’s behalf to move them up, though he insisted it was only to save his own hearing.

“And what have you been up to today, brother?” Thor asked.  His brother, of course, was perfectly clean and smelling of mint and evergreen—almost too strongly.  There were plenty of rumors about what kind of dandy Loki must be to perfume himself like a woman, but his brother never sought closeness with anyone--woman or man--as far as Thor could tell.  Personally, he was worried his brother had damaged his sense of smell with one of his potion experiments.

“I found a very interesting text yesterday afternoon on how to shape-shift from one form to another without reverting to your natural form in between.  I’ve spent most of today practicing the art, and found it easiest to shift from a natural creature to a magical one.”

“Oh dear,” Fandral said on Loki’s other side.  “Now I will spend all my days wondering if every mouse I cross will become some eldritch horror.”

Loki turned with the speed of a predator.  “Why, that is an excellent idea, Fandral.  I shall _always_ keep that mind.  Though I can, of course, become far more than a mouse: a cat. A spider. Even the pillow on your bed, if given reason.”

Thor laughed, slapping his brother on the back.  “A worthy jest!”  His brother rolled his eyes, but he turned his attention away from his grimacing friends and back to Thor. A hirð could not fight amongst itself--even if they were not technically a hirð yet, and none thought of themselves as such.  Thor leaned in to murmur,“Do you have to provoke them so?”

Loki’s mouth flattened before he smoothed his expression into a cipher.  Thor did not understand why Loki would try to hide from him so.  “I? I was provoked first.”

Thor sighed.  He noticed his hand was still on Loki’s back, resting comfortably now and warmed by Loki’s skin through his tunic.  He left it there and leaned in a little more, because while he smelled so strongly of mint, there was something underneath—

Loki pushed his brother away with a finger to the soft flesh at the base of his neck.  “Sit up straight, brother.  You are at an age where basic decorum at the high table is now expected.”

“And there is another reason to wish to be an alpha.”  Fandral’s odd comment caught Thor’s attention, and he looked past his brother to where the Warriors Three had their heads bent together.

He followed their line of sight to find Lady Aldis, the latest member of court to come of age as an omega.  The quiet blonde was starting to fill out the curves of her pink dress, but her cheeks were still rounded with youth.  Thor had never had cause to speak with her, as she was younger by five years.

She had arrived with her mother, the Lady Arnthrud, and her brother Vestar, who Thor had never sparred with but knew by reputation to be a forthright, if middlingly, warrior.  Both Lady Arnthrud and Vestar wore blades on their hips.  Lady Arnthrud had been a shieldmaiden before her marriage, but had given her husband her sword on their wedding day, as custom.  The Lord Sumarlid died twenty years ago in battle on Muspelheim, and now that Aldis had come into her maturity, the wife had retaken up the blade in her husband’s absence.

“Poor girl probably already has more attention than she knows what to do with,” Volstagg remarked.  “Don’t add your suit to the mix when you do not even know if it’s a promise you can keep.”

Fandral frowned, always unhappy with reminder that it could be another year or so before he matured.  “I did not think omegas were ever unhappy with attention,” he retorted.

“Then it’s a shame you missed your true calling.”  Loki’s interjection caused a pause as the rest tried to unravel his meaning.

“What?” Fandral sputtered as he caught on.  “I am completely unsuited to be an omega!”

“Oh?” Loki raised one eyebrow, expression darkening.  “Just think, since omegas develop earlier, all the insecurity you incessantly exhibit over the shape of your cock would be over.”

“Loki!” Thor hissed, throwing a side glance to their parents, but they were deep in conversation with the councillors on Frigga’s left.  A thin line of blazing green magic demarcated the place settings between Thor and their father.  Seeing it, Thor doubted anyone could hear their conversation—or at least Loki’s part in it.

“You go too far.” Fandral drew himself up, and Thor could see the challenge he would throw at Loki as clear as any divination.  Loki leaned back in his chair, unconcerned, and Thor wished he could be on Loki’s other side, between his brother and his friends.

“For someone with a silver tongue, why are so many of your words leaden?” Sif drawled.

“I wonder.  Is it my tongue or your ears which need whetted?”

“Stop!” Thor ordered, slamming his fist down on the table.  As he’d hoped, Loki’s spell extended to the rest of them, and no one took notice.  “I will have this conversation cease.”

Thor found himself increasingly unsuited at stilling the trouble Loki roused.  The best he could do was drop a boulder through the wave and hope the ripples took a more pleasing shape.

He was never going to be able to forge them into a hirð at this rate.

His brother and friends respected his request, and the table fell into an unhappy silence as the meal was served.  It lasted until Vostagg, irrepressible in the face of good food, was able to naturally restart conversation.

Far away amongst the lower tables, Lady Aldis took her supper.  Her place now separated from her peers, flanked by her family on either side.


	3. Loki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some terms used:  
> Glíma – where warriors learned wrestling techniques  
> hirð – a unit of warriors
> 
> Neither Thor nor Loki have ever questioned the prejudices they've grown up with regarding gender or the A/B/O system. Please don't let it throw you off! Both of them have a lot to learn.

**Chapter Three**

**FOUR YEARS EARLIER**

Loki woke, exhausted and unsurprised. His sleep had ranged from uneasy to nonexistent for over a week. He pushed off the light sheet, grimacing upon finding he had sweated through it overnight--again. Spring was unusually warm this year, but nothing that would warrant the constant perspiration that plagued Loki and only seemed to be worsening.

Dawn was only starting touch the horizon, so Loki indulged in a long, cold bath in his private chambers. It was a happy luxury, even with the knowledge that in two hours, the Glíma would have him sweating once more.

He did not revel in combat the way Thor did, but there was a satisfaction in taking down opponents who somehow thought his practice of seiðr had caused his hard-won muscles to vanish like the flimsiest illusion. Tyr, Loki decided. He would challenge Tyr to a match. The pompous god was highly skilled, but utterly straightforward. A perfect challenge to work out his frustrations on.

After he dried off, Loki returned to his bedroom, where he was expecting breakfast. A tray of cheeses and bread was there, but so was the maid, clutching one of his pillowcases stuffed full. The way it bulged suggested cloth, so either his clothing or his stripped sheets, neither of which made sense.

“Prince Loki.” The maid curtseyed low. Loki eyed her, vexingly unable to deduce her purpose. “I, I believe—I mean, I know—it’s—you need to call on Queen Frigga as soon as possible.”

Loki could hardly puzzle out the message. “You mean my mother has called for me this morning?”

The maid bit her lip. “Your mother would be very happy to see you with all haste.”

“Why did you not speak so plainly before?” How odd, Loki thought. Mother had stopped calling them to breakfast when they entered the Glíma—mostly so Thor could sleep in a little.

The maid curtsied again, and Loki strode past her out the door. It was only two corridors down that he realized the maid was not simply going in the same direction as Loki, she was following him.

“I assure you, I know the way to my lady mother’s chambers quite well.” If this was an insult or payback, it was a curious one. The maid appeared increasingly unhappy, but she only bobbed another curtsy and followed ten paces behind him like a lost dog.

One of Queen Frigga’s handmaiden escorted them into the antechamber and announced their presence to the inner boudoir. His mother appeared quite quickly, hair only half up and in a yellow morning gown.

“Loki,” she greeted. “What cause has brought you here so early?”

Loki found himself flat footed. “Did you not call for me?”

“I am glad you are here, though I must admit it is a happy surprise.” Mother and son shared a moment of confusion.

“Excuse me, your highness.” It was that odd maid again, edging her way closer to their conversation. “I beg pardon for any presumption, but I was thinking you’d want to see your son after I brought this.” She held out the full pillowcase.

Frigga’s handmaiden came forward to relieve her of it, but the maid took a step back. “This is a… sensitive issue. I would not give this pillowcase to anyone you did not completely trust.”

From the darkening of the handmaiden’s expression, the insult would not be soon forgotten. Loki was baffled by such a clumsy attempt to curry favor, if that’s what the maid thought she was doing, for her actions would endear her to no one.

“I trust Finna in all things, but if your concern is sincere, I will give her leave.”

The maid’s head remained bowed after she curtsied. “Please, your majesty.”

Loki could only shake his head at his mother’s questioning glance. He could not recognize what machinations drove her actions, whether because they were exceedingly clumsy or clever beyond his ken.

“Then, Finna, please prepare my gown and accoutrements.” The handmaiden bowed and exited back into the queen mother’s inner chambers, closing the doors behind her. “And let us finally be frank about why you have roused both the Queen and Prince of Asgard this morning while dragging my son’s bed things.”

The maid handed over the pillowcase, head even more bowed. Loki could only watch as his mother pulled out his top sheet, staring at it in puzzlement for a moment before a slight frown crossed her face. She breathed deeply, and Loki flushed with mortification as she brought the sheet closer to her face and breathed again.

“Mother, I—” Frigga held up her empty hand and Loki fell silent. She turned to the maid.

“What is your name?”

“Hekja, your majesty.”

“Hekja, keep quiet about this and you will be handsomely rewarded.”

“Thank you, your majesty. I will not breathe a word. My sister is also—” Her eyes flicked to Loki for a second before she lowered her gaze again.  “This past year, my family has also experienced the difficulty--”  Alarm crossed her face.  “Not that I am presuming to compare my family to yours, your Majesty.  I am sure I do not know--”

“Peace,” Frigga laid a hand on the stammering maid’s shoulder to halt her babble.  “Your words are taken in the well-meaning spirit they are intended.”  
  
“Are they?” Loki asked, cross that a maid could carry on a conversation he could not follow--especially one that appeared to be about him.  His mother gave him a censuring look before reassuring the maid once more and sending her on her way.

“You should have at least sent her with orders for a double breakfast,” Loki complained.  “Seeing as how I was prematurely parted from mine.”

“That maid has done you a tremendous favor, Loki.  It would behoove you to show her a little kindness.”  She settled on the settee and patted the space beside her.  “Come, let us sit and talk awhile.”

There was only one topic Loki could think of that dealt with the smell of his bedsheets, and Loki emphatically did not want to discuss it with his refined mother.  Loki pulled himself up to be as tall and straight-backed as possible.

“Mother, I assure you, there is no need.  Our tutors have already discussed the matter with Thor and I to our satisfaction.”

Frigga smiled, small and sad.  “I’m afraid they did not cover this topic, darling.  Sit.”  Loki stiffly crossed the room and sat, ready to protest the second his mother started talking about what he just knew she was going to talk about.

“Both of my sons are growing up so fast.”  Loki squirmed slightly at the sentiment, and Frigga laughed.  “You are, and I know you and Thor already have dreams and plans of what your futures will hold, so Loki, when your plans change, you must not dwell on what could have been, but focus on what can be now.”

She reached out to cup his cheeks, her hands soft and smooth with freshly applied beeswax.  “You are my son, Loki, and you are an omega.”

Loki stared at her, the words not sinking in for a long minute.

“What?”  he said.  “That’s not possible.  Both you and father are alphas.”

“Alpha pairs can give birth to omegas, darling.  You know this.”  Yes, and Loki knew how rare it was, how rare omegas were in general.  Omegas numbered only one in twenty of the population, and male omegas only one in twenty of that.  To have befallen those odds...

Loki pulled back, heart starting to pound.  “How could I--”

“You didn’t do anything,” Frigga cut him off.  “You were born this way, Loki, and it will be fine.  
  
“Fine?!”  Loki’s voice rose in pitch and volume.  “How will any of this be fine?  What will they say in the Glíma when they find out?”  
  
Frigga’s comforting smile wavered.  “Loki, darling, you will not be able to return to the Glíma.  An omega could not practice in close quarters with alphas without...incident.”

The Glíma was a fact of life.  How could Loki _just not go_?

“How will I build my hirð if I cannot practice with the warriors?”  As soon as the question was out, Loki knew it was a foolish one.  The answer was written on his mother’s face:  he wouldn’t be able to.  Like a chain of dominos, all his expectations for the future were knocking themselves down, and he was helpless to stop them.   He could not practice in the Glíma.  He could not lead a hirð.  He could not be Thor’s equal.  Loki sprang up and began to pace.

“What am I supposed to do then?  Are you going to marry me off?”  His mind raced.  He tried to think of who he’d wish to bond with, and no alpha came to mind.  Would his parents choose for him?  Omegas were typically married soon after they presented due to heat-bonding.  Who would his parents choose?  How would his future, unknown spouse treat Loki?  He would never be Thor’s equal now.

“Loki!” Frigga rushed to pull him into a half-embrace.  “Calm yourself.  Do not let your imagination drag you down dark paths.  This is not some unhappy sentencing, but your natural maturation.  Try to think of some happy consequence to this development.”

Loki did not want to think harder on the subject, not when his mind so easily supplied everything that would be wrong with his life now, but he tried for his mother, and eventually his thoughts stopped spinning in circles about the Glíma and marriage and being the markedly inferior second prince of Asgard.  Frigga waited patiently the entire time.

“I suppose that this will give me more time to work on my sorcerous studies,” he eventually offered, the words dragged out of him.  He never had time to read or practice his magic except in the late hours of the evening when he was exhausted.  Seiðr was a respected art for women and old men, but young, healthy men who dedicated themselves to it instead of warcraft were viewed as shirking their duty.  He supposed he’d have plenty of time now, but there was no real gladness in that thought.  He had _fought_ for the right to learn magic despite his age and had been proud that his skillful elocution in front of the Þing had secured him the right.  Now, the court would simper that _of course_ he should be a seiðmenn.  _Obviously_ , Loki's desire had just his nature revealing itself early, and not Loki's _choice_.  Another thought occurred.  “As long as I have my alpha's approval,” he added bitterly.

“I was not planning on simply giving you away to the highest bidder as if you were a colt in auction,” Frigga said dryly, and sighed at her son’s still worried countenance.  “This has been a grievous shock to you, and you are not mentally prepared to begin courting.  We can hold off on announcing you to the court until a later date.  How would you like that?”  
  
“How long?” Loki asked, hope lightening his face.

“Perhaps four months time.  We could have a lovely feast in celebration before the autumn harvest.”  
  
Loki paced to the far end of the antechamber where he brooded for a while, shoulders hunched and head down as he calculated the arithmetic of his life.  “Five years,” he finally said.  
  
“Loki--”

“Please, hear me out, mother.”  He came close and clasped her hands in his.  “I am not a lady, who can be wed and then go back to her sewing circle.  To be announced as an omega is to end my current life as the second prince of Asgard.  In five years time, Thor will begin to present as an alpha, as we all know he will--”  He could not help the slip of bitterness that wormed its way in.  “--and our closeness will be severely restricted.  I ask of you those five years to continue the chance to be Thor’s brother.  You know hunting and adventuring with Thor would never been seen as acceptable if my status was known.”

Loki could see his mother soften at the appeal to kinship, as he’d hoped she would.  More importantly, five years would give him time to learn the advanced sorcerous texts.  Powerful mages could transform themselves into beasts.  Surely, changing oneself from omega to alpha would be even easier.

“I do think it is important for you boys to be close,” Frigga said hesitantly.  “If I agree to this, you must bargain something in return, Loki.  If you find an alpha you do find yourself compatible with, you must swear to tell me.  Can you promise your mother this one thing?”

Loki kissed her knuckles.  “I swear it as a son of Odin.”

“Then if we are to uphold this deception, there are a few things that must be done.”  She swept away into her inner boudoir and returned scarce moments later with a bottle of perfume.  “You will have to wear strong scents to cover your omega pheromones and clothing that covers as much skin as possible.  You must avoid sweating, possibly by bathing multiple times a day.  Are you prepared to do so?”  
  
“A small inconvenience for a greater freedom obtained,” Loki dismissed.  Frigga nodded in acceptance, and proceeded to show him how to use the perfume.  The strong pomegranates and cloves scent made Loki wrinkle his nose, but it was a small price to pay, as he had said.

 Frigga laughed softly at his expression.  “I will help you find scents you find more appealing.  Take this for now, and I will go speak to your father and arrange your withdrawal from the Glíma.”

 The reminder stung, and Loki bowed swiftly before giving his farewells.  It felt strange returning to his rooms when he should have been headed to the Glíma for the morning practice.  His spell books were still open on his desk, so he picked one up to peruse as he ate a leisurely breakfast.

 He had known Thor would come.  He’d prepared for it with stillness, building up his implacability like a bulwark against the coming storm.  Thor could not know.  Not only would he look at Loki differently--as an inferior--but his forthright brother could never keep such an immense secret.

Thor could not know, but Loki had not realized how much his brother’s disapprobation would cut.  He knew that Asgard’s censure would be far worse than his brother’s rough concern, but he did not care for all their opinions even a fraction as much as he did the betrayed look in his brother’s blue eyes.  Thor left with a promise to include Loki in his hirð, a lovely, foolish dream that would end long before Thor could fulfill that oath.

He turned back to his spell books.  This is where Loki preferred to put his faith.  He would pit his mind and skill against centuries of Asgard’s traditions, against his own body, and he would find a way.  Loki just knew it.


End file.
